


death of captain america

by Szpurka



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame, Canon Rewrite, Gen, Kinda, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Red Skull - Freeform, Relationship Study, Soul Stone, Their friendship, Vormir, they're best bros okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 15:58:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Szpurka/pseuds/Szpurka
Summary: Natasha and Steve are the ones who go to retrieve the Soul Stone.The rules are simple: a soul for a soul, a life for a life. You have to sacrifice the thing most precious to you.It turns out for Steve it's his body and the persona of Captain America that goes with it. He has to let it go.





	death of captain america

**Author's Note:**

> Wanted to finish it for AGES and finally got a chance! Enjoy!
> 
> Inspired by [this amazing fanart](https://growingpaynes-art.tumblr.com/post/184050550577/a-concept-ive-been-thinking-about-since-infinity)  
and the idea of Pre-Serum Steve being in Endgame and how it would happen. Also skinny steve lifting Mjolnir, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk :D

Natasha stands next to him, he has his hand on the keypad but he doesn't push the button. His shoulders are straight, his chin up, his jaw set, his shield on his back. There's nothing unusual to his posture. He looks stubborn and confident.

And yet, his hand wavers. Natasha sees the minuscule reaction just because she's looking for one. For the reassurance that she's not alone in this. They worked so hard for this, it feels bigger than anything they ever stood against. If they fuck up now, there's no going back.

Her hands are shaking so badly she has to laugh at herself. It feels like its her first mission, except that she's not alone. There's a man beside her, a friend, a brother. It's all the reassurance she needs.

She claps him hard on his shoulder. She lets out a little smirk as he stumbles forward, as she catches him off guard. He chuckles as he rights himself.

“Was that really necessary, Nat?” he asks with that mock disapproval of his. It makes his look like a dad.

“Not at all. I kinda like the prospect of standing here for another five years, before you decide to push that damn thing and get us out of here as soon as possible.”

“Alright, alright. Someone's grumpy.”

She slaps his shoulder again as they both snort and he pushes the damn button.

There's mist, white and thick. The air is stuffy and hard to breathe. The sky is dark and the black moon is looming over their heads, like it's supposed to fall on their heads if they make any sudden moves. They can barely see, but they're used to night. Most of their missions took place at night. This, at least, they're familiar with.

The atmosphere as they reach the top of the highest, darkest mountain, makes them both anxious, with one hand always ready to reach for a weapon. Even air feels different up there.

It feels like death.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Natasha says. She never was a person to fill the silence with pointless chatter. Now feels like the right time to break the habit.

“You telling me,” Steve is in front of her. There's a tremor in his voice, but his mouth still twist in this wry way of his. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I'd kill for a peanut butter sandwich right about now.”

They both snort. “We're out of peanut butter, you know.”

“And whose fault is that?” Steve half turns to send her the eyebrows of disappointment, but then someone appears and they both are on high alert in half a second flat, standing side by side, hands on weapons, ready to fight.

It was a shadow at first and then it turned into a shape, close to a man in a black coat, floating above the ground. They both stop breathing as the alien, creature or whatever this is descends on their eye level and, when they look closely, there's a face peaking behind the black fabric and it's...

It's red. It's a red skull.

“Red Skull,” she hears Steve say and she doesn't get it why would he state the obvious, but then the red face's mouth opens.

“Welcome back, Steven.” Red Skull nods at him, then he does the same to Natasha, “Natalia Alianovna Romanoff, daughter of Ivan.”

How this... thing knows this she has no idea. She immediately reaches for her weapon, mourning that this isn't a normal human and she doesn't have a gun to fire at least six bullets into his huge red forehead. It's an instinct, honed by years of training and experience.

Something at the back of her head tells her it'd be useless, because this thing, whatever it is, is not easily killed. It doesn't resemble aliens and inhuman beings she encountered over all those years. It doesn't even feel almost invincible like Thanos. It feels ethereal, like whatever she'd do, there would not be a graze on it, much less a scar.

So she stands back. Let's Steve handle it, only because Steve doesn't look afraid or whatever she's feeling. He recognizes the being and he looks annoyed.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

Red Skull doesn't seem to feel emotions, it has a neutral expression, eerie, like nothing gets to him. “I am not who you once encountered. I am Red Skull. And I am not. I was once a man craving power. Now I have power, but I am not a man. I am a guide. And I am not.”

“Why are you talking in riddles?” Steve voices what Natasha thinks. It seems this being took shape of whoever Steve knew back in the day. “Are you Johann Schmidt, or are you not? Simple question.”

“I am a guardian of this place. I am a guide. I possess that which you are looking for. I always have what you are looking for, do I not? Sooner or later, past or present, you come to me.”

“The Soul Stone. You have the Soul Stone, right?” Natasha asks, before Steve can be side-tracked again. They came here for one thing. There's no point in getting distracted.

“I am a guide,” Red Skull repeats again and Natasha is getting a bit annoyed, too. “To you, and to all who seek the Soul Stone.”

“Okay. Then tell us where it is, and we'll be on out way.”

“Your demand is simple. The solution is also simple. Look in front of you.” Red Skull floats out of their way to let both of them pass.

There's a cliff there, with writings and runes that looked old, probably older than anything on Earth. The whole place looked like ruins of a shrine.

Natasha and Steve exchange looks. So they're both thinking the same thing. If this is a shrine, then the cliff is an altar.

“What you seek lies in front of you, as does what you fear the most. The stone is down there. For one of you. For the other...In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. An everlasting exchange. A soul, for a soul. Simple as that.”

Natasha stands in front of Steve with a lighter heart. She'd thought it would be something worse. And now, at least one of them would come back.

Steve looks sad, his mouth twisted in a line. She smiles at him and his frown deepens.

“Hey, soldier, it's alright,” she says, her voice might've cracked on the familiar nickname and might've not, she isn't sure. It's the last time she'll see him, she's allowed to let go a bit, just this once. “We both know who has to go.”

Steve grabs her shoulder, shaking his head frantically, “No. No, no. You worked for this more than any of us. You were our support. When everything was going to shit and me and everyone else were wallowing in self-pity you stood strong, you didn't lose hope. If someone deserves to be there and see the happy ending, it's you.”

Natasha feels the droplet rolling on his neck to her collarbone and she shivers. Oh, she's crying. The tears fall freely from her eyes and she can't seem to stop them. Huh. That's certainly a first.

“Look what you did!” She smacks Steve on the forearm holding her shoulder, letting out a snort of a laugh, while sniffling and she probably looks disgusting. She feels snot running down her nose and she swipes it with the back of her hand.

Steve doesn't relent. His eyes are glassy, too and he has a pinched expression she only saw a handful of times of his face and oh no, if he'll start crying, she seriously wouldn't be able to stop. She begs him to hold it, for both of their sakes.

“It's your team, Steve,” she says softly.

“It's you family, Nat,” he counters.

“It's your family, too.”

Steve sighs, almost rolling his eyes. “This clearly won't work. We're both too stubborn.”

“You're stubborn,” Natasha mutters, because she has to have the last word.

“Nat. I'm telling you to let me do this.”

“And I'm telling you to cut the bullshit. What would our family do, huh? Without their dad?”

“They have like at least four dads. Plus two actual ones. But only one mom.”

“Sorry, Steve, that's still a no,” she says.

“If that's what you want...”

They fight for a while, one upping each other and if anyone else would see them right now maybe that person would laugh, how two idiots are willing to die for each other and are too stubborn to let each other go.

In the end, Steve leaves his shield embed in the ground and jumps face first from the cliff, like he's so used to doing.

She throws a line to him but he knows her well, he grins at her from upside down, with a grunt he manages to take a knife from his boot and before she draws him all the way, he cuts the rope and she falls on her back, closing her eyes with a sob. She won't look, she doesn't want to see him laying there.

And then Red Skulls says, “A soul for a soul, simple, always,” and those are just a words that together don't mean much to her, but his tone is... He sounds... surprised, almost.

Natasha slowly opens her eyes and turn back to see...

“Steve?” she almost shouts and leaps to get the man into his arms, but stops suddenly.

This man that she sees in front of her, he has Steve's face and eyes and hair. But he's different. As he slowly stands he has to catch himself on the ground on his unsteady arms and unsteady legs. He finally manages to stand and the most surprising thing perhaps is that he reaches Natasha's eyes. They are the same height now. And when there is no muscle visible on the pale nude skin to distract from his bones, it feels like his arms and legs are too long for him. She can count his ribs and his chest is almost concave.

It's Steve Rogers. But it's Steve from the past. The real Steve. That's the body he was born with.

“Steve?” she asks again, just to make sure.

He looks at her with wide eyes that feel too wide for his face, then on his fist. He uncurls the fingers of his left and there's a stone there. It's yellow and it's so small, Natasha is almost afraid it's not it. But it must be.

But it's still there.

Steve turns to Red Skull, who is floating on the same height he was before. The smaller Steve has to crane his neck to look up at him. The being looks satisfied now. His face seemingly didn't change, but it's there. Natasha can see it. Why it looks so smug, she doesn't know.

“That's it?” Steve says and his voice is the same, low and confident. And Natasha breaths a sigh of relief.

“A soul for a soul. The stone does what it wants. You lost thing the most precious to you, Steven, and you will never get it back. That's the fate it left you with. And that's the end to my curse.”

As he says it, he disappears into a black fog and then white as he connects to the rest of the fog.

“That's it,” Steve says, looking at the stone in his hand. There's something in his expression. He isn't exactly happy he's alive, not relieved as Natasha is. There's apprehension, confusion and a little resentment, but the most he just looks lost. Shivers wracking his small frame. She wants to give him some clothes, but she just has the time travel suit.

“Come on, soldier.” She takes the shield, pulling it out of the ground and thinks Steve will reach for it, but he doesn't. He doesn't even looks it's way.

He has to lean on her his hand over her neck as she helps him walk on his shaky legs, like a baby deer learning how to walk. Her hand between hold his shield. And they stumble like that all the way to their ship.

They go back to the future, or their present. Everyone looks tired but they're smiling and that's the most important part.

They're smiling until they see him.

Until they all look at him with various expressions of pity. In that moment it really feels like a soul was lost. It has, perhaps.

Captain America is dead.

“You still sure you wanna do this?” Tony asks and Steve rolls his eyes, putting on his helmet. It's too large for him and he grind when it brings back memories.

“Unless Thanos said you have to be at least this tall to go along for the ride.”

Tony snorts and claps him on his back and Steve stumbled forward.

Yeah, there were some things he didn't miss, after all.

He feels like a one big bruise and his lungs are burning, and they barely started fighting. There's a ringing in his ears as he thrown across the battlefield. He screws his eyes shut and wished for the blow to be quick.

Then he feels a surge of power, a tingling in his arm.

Mjolnir comes flying right into his head and Steve is rendered speechless before he burst out laughing right along Thor.

He's worth it.

He's still worth it.

When Bucky sees him for the first time he has the most confused and surprised expression Steve has seen on him in a while and he burst out laughing. Bucky follows and when he throws his arms around him, he can easily pick him up and turn him around, like he'd done a million times back in the day.

Steve hated it.

Just this once, he doesn't mind.

When he comes back from the past, he's panting and Bucky and Sam are immediately at his side. They help him sit up. There's a shiny silver shield he's still clutching to his arms.

“How did you--?” Sam asks.

“Don't ask,” Steve and Bucky say at the same time and all of them start to laugh.

“It's a prototype,” Steve says as he gets his breathing under control and doesn't feel like coughing his lungs out. He hold it out to Sam, who looks surprised.

“You got that wrong, man,” he says looking sideways at Bucky, who shakes his head.

Bucky tries to hide his smile. “I think he got it right.”

“You serious?” Sam asks. Steve nods, but Sam still has a hard time believing it.

“It one of the last ones. It looks a little meh, but the good side is we can paint it whatever color you wanna.”

“Nah, don't wanna have this guy painting anything of mine.”

Bucky shoves him and they start bickering. Steve stands in front of them, hands on his hips with a huge smile on his face.

Sam takes the shield. They help him paint it, too.

Long live Captain America.

**Author's Note:**

> [If you liked my story, consider buying me a coffee!](https://ko-fi.com/szpurka)
> 
> How did you like it? Still better happy ending than Endgame tho, right?
> 
> Tell me what you think in the comments or come ask me about this fic or what I think of endgame on my [tumblr](https://w-szpurka.tumblr.com) :)
> 
> I also encourage you to visit [my site](https://szpurka.com/), because I'm just starting and it's important to me, and I have an actual physical novel in the making, so maybe if you're interested in that you can ask me about it or smth :D


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